


unsound this alarm, unbreak my heart new

by Solanaceae



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Resurrection Rituals, true love's crit: campaign 2 edition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27156358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solanaceae/pseuds/Solanaceae
Summary: Resurrection rituals require three offerings. Fjord, Caleb, and Yasha have things they'd like to say to Beau.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Comments: 4
Kudos: 176





	unsound this alarm, unbreak my heart new

**Author's Note:**

> slipping this in an hour before the new episode because i just think there's nothing quite like a love confession during a resurrection ritual and campaign 2 hasn't given it to us yet. this presumably happens after the end of the fight that episode 112 cliffhangered us with, but it's vague!
> 
> *
> 
> no one can unring this bell  
> unsound this alarm, unbreak my heart new  
> god knows, i am dissonance  
> waiting to be swiftly pulled into tune
> 
> —sleeping at last, mercury

“I need three of you to help me.” 

Though the deck of the ship is slick and cold, Jester doesn’t seem to care that her coat is getting soaked through where she kneels beside Beau’s death-still body. Tear tracks streak through the grime and dried blood on her cheeks, but her eyes are bright with determination as she looks up at the rest of the Mighty Nein, hands clenched so hard around her holy symbol that her knuckles have gone pale.

“Three?” Veth echoes. Her eyes are fixed on Beau, laid out on the deck, clothing stained dark with blood and skin going cold under the winter rain. “It isn’t—I thought you just prayed, and it—it just worked.” 

Jester shakes her head, biting her lip. “It—it didn’t work the first time. We have to try again. We have to try _together_ , to make _sure_ this one brings her back.” Her voice wavers. “Okay?”

Caduceus folds to his knees beside Jester, holding a diamond in his cupped palms. Together, they begin laying out the ritual—Jester’s desperation and Caduceus’ steady hand, a heat-sputter of incense lit into musty smoke as they work on either side of Beau. Over the three of them, a faint shimmer of green fades into view, the Traveler’s cloak shielding Beau’s body and the ritual growing around her from the light but bitterly cold rain. 

Jester finishes by carefully placing three small statues of the Traveler around Beau’s head, then brushing Beau’s bloodstained hair back from her face. “We’re going to get you back,” she whispers. “Right, Artie?”

If Artagan replies, none of the rest can hear—but after a moment, Jester nods and glances back to the rest. “You can come help now. Three of you. Do whatever you think will help bring her soul back.”

For a moment, there’s only the sound of cracking ice and sleet still glancing off the deck. Then Fjord steps forward, clearing his throat.

“I—I’ll go first,” he offers, looking around for confirmation before moving to Beau’s side. His sword, still summoned, disappears from his hand in a flurry of snow whiter and cleaner than the sleet around them as he lets out a breath.

"Last time I stood over a dead friend,” Fjord begins, “I saluted his grave. I figure since Molly managed to come back somehow, I’ll save my saluting for when I’m sure someone’s gone and, well—I _know_ you’re coming back. Not because I’m certain Jester’s spell will work, but because if it doesn’t, there’s nothing in any of the planes that’ll stop us from getting you back. Caduceus said so, remember? We’re not done until we’ve saved each other.”

He glances to Caduceus, who nods thoughtfully, the rain dripping from his faded pink hair.

“A captain’s nothing without his first mate,” Fjord continues, looking down at Beau. “I _want_ that future you talked about, sailing the seas, always finding new things to do—I don’t want the adventuring we’re doing to end until it has to. And it doesn’t have to yet. I—” He shakes his head. “I like this family. There’s more to our story, and I want you to be with us to discover it. That’s all.”

Beside Beau’s right ear, one of the small statues shimmers, an emerald glow growing from within. Fjord steps back to rejoin the Nein.

Caleb glances at Yasha, an unspoken question in the furrow of his brow. She nods, and he steps forward to sit down next to Beau, legs crossed and damp hair falling across his forehead. With one hand, he opens his spellbook; with the other, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small cloth bundle, which he unwraps with careful motions to reveal a light green powder that he cups his hand around, sheltering it from the sleet. 

“This,” he tells Beau’s still body, “is the remainder of the jade dust which I used on Rumblecusp. It is from the jade rabbit Veth gave me, which she obtained from your father’s house.” He pours the dust into her hand, then puts his own over it to curl her limp fingers around the powdered jade. “And now I would like to use it to remind you—to remind you how very important you are to us. To me.” 

A whisper of arcane incantation. From between Beau’s fingers, amber light begins to rise in ribbons. Through the cold, the ribbons split into glowing threads that weave a series of silently shifting images—some of the same moments Caleb had brought to life on the inside of a dome only a few weeks prior but some of them new, stitched out over and over in midair as though in a tapestry, or history.

Beau and Caleb, waltzing in a Rexxentrum dance hall. 

Beau and Yasha, in a flurry of luminous feathers, flying over Rumblecusp. 

Beau, kneeling in front of her younger brother, holding out a jade necklace.

Beau on the back of a haloed owl, rushing through a storm of ice with a looming figure behind.

Beau and Fjord on the deck of the _Balleater_ , seawind and saltspray etched in light like a thousand amber sparks.

Four figures around a freshly-dug grave.

Three figures at a table in a small-town inn, dividing a tiny pile of coin.

Beau, snatching an arrow from midair. Beau, sitting by the sea in Nicodranas, eyes closed, a smile woven from light on her face. Beau, bloodied in a fighting pit in Asarius. Speaking in a throne room before King Dwendal. Embraced in the rain outside a house in Kamordah. Leading a group meditation in a zombie-infested swamp. In the vestments of an Expositor of the Cobalt Soul. With papers spread before her on a table. 

All around Beau’s body, the tapestries grow and spread outward, threads of amber weaving under and over themselves, trailing off into the mist like streamers of parchment waiting to be written on.

“I asked you before not to go,” Caleb says. “Now I’m asking you to come home.”

The second of the Traveler statues flares into verdant light beside Beau’s left ear. Caleb gets back to his feet and Yasha steps forward, staring down at Beau. 

“Can I…?” she asks, tentative, and Jester nods.

“Please.”

Yasha kneels beside Beau and just looks at her for a long moment. “I’m—I’m not good at this,” she says eventually, voice quiet. “I’ve _never_ been good at this, but I guess I always think I have more time to figure it out, and—I don’t.” A small, sad laugh. “I should know that. I _do_ know that, but I guess I’ve been… I’ve been afraid.”

The icy rain needles down around them, washing the deck of the ship clean. 

Yasha takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I—need you to come back. It’s very selfish of me, I guess, but there’s so much I need to tell you. I shouldn’t have waited, and I… I hope it’s not too late.”

Yasha leans down and touches her lips to Beau’s forehead, a tremble to her hand as she smooths Beau’s hair back from her face.

“You make me feel things… feel ways that I haven’t in a very long time. I’ve only—there was one other person who—” She closes her eyes and swallows before saying, “I care about you. A lot. And it makes me so scared, to feel so much, but you’re not someone I want to run away from. You’re someone I want to run to.”

The storm seems to swell as Yasha sits back. Minute shards of ice ping off the steel strings of the bone harp as she pulls it out of her bag and settles it on her lap, fingers holding the whorled spine of it steady.

“I, um. I wrote this—well, Jester helped. It was for the right moment, and I’m hoping this is a right moment.” She swipes the back of her hand across her eyes. “It’s the right moment if it brings you back to me, I think.” 

Yasha inhales and begins to sing in Celestial, the syllables clear like ringing bells and the call of songbirds. The thunder almost seems to wait for when she pauses, a low, rumbling undertone beneath the notes from the harp. It’s a short song, the melody simple, but by the time she finishes, there are tears streaming down her cheeks. 

The third statuette bursts alight like a green star, illuminating Beau as Jester presses the diamond to her chest and whispers the final prayer. Yasha’s eyes don’t leave Beau’s face as the diamond shatters soundlessly, a cascade of brilliant sparks that hang in the air for one heartbeat, another, lit by the emerald and amber still glowing around Beau. 

The sparks fade. Beau’s chest shudders as she takes a breath, half-choking on the suddenness of it, and Jester gives a sob of relief as Beau’s eyes flutter open, disoriented momentarily before her gaze finds Yasha, who stares at her with half-parted lips and a soft, open hopefulness. 

“What was that about my abs?” Beau asks with a half-formed grin, voice hoarse.

Yasha’s cheeks flush a deep red. “O-oh, you heard—you understood…?”

Caduceus, who started quietly pouring healing into Beau the moment she stirred, makes a half-hearted noise of protest as Beau sits up. “Careful.”

Beau ignores him, looking at Yasha. “Yeah, I heard you. You called me back. It was—” She coughs, wincing, and gasps out, “It was a good song.”

“Well, it sounds better in Celestial, I guess,” Yasha mumbles. 

Tentatively, she leans forward, as if she almost expects Beau to pull away—but Beau smiles and meets her halfway, the harp caught between them giving a few discordant twangs of protest. It’s a clumsy and helpless kiss that tastes like blood and winter rain. 

When they pull apart, there are tears on Yasha’s cheek. Beau reaches up to wipe one away, her other hand having managed at some point to tangle in Yasha’s hair.

“It’s fine,” Yasha blurts out, and then laughs wetly, pressing her forehead to Beau’s. “I’m just so—I’m so happy.”


End file.
